


White (For Death And Mourning/When Our Bodies Burn)

by MedusaSterling



Series: Colors (All Manners of AUs) [2]
Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: Canon Divergence - s03e17 Heavenly Fire, Death, F/M, Grief/Mourning, Immortality, Legends
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-04
Updated: 2019-07-04
Packaged: 2020-06-03 21:54:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,076
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19472959
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MedusaSterling/pseuds/MedusaSterling
Summary: There's a meadow in Idris where no one ever goes. No matter the weather, it is always covered in a blanket of snow. Some say it's haunted. Some say it's cursed. In truth, it is neither. It is protected by spells, but not cursed. And the only thing that haunts it are memories of a long forgotten past.





	White (For Death And Mourning/When Our Bodies Burn)

**Author's Note:**

> The first of my Colors stories I had written and number 5 in the series takes us to Idris and a tragedy long forgotten...

There's a meadow in Idris where no one ever goes. No matter the weather, it is always covered in a blanket of snow. Some say it's haunted. Some say it's cursed. In truth, it is neither. It is protected by spells, but not cursed. And the only thing that haunts it are memories of a long forgotten past. 

In the middle of this meadow, beneath a cave like canopy of leaves and vines rests a sarcophagus of stone and gold and glass, protecting a most precious cargo. Those that have dared to wander that far into the meadow and lived to tell the tale speak of a beautiful woman with hair like the moonless night and lips the color of blood. Her head is garlanded with roses the colors of winter mornings and northern lights.

And in clear nights, when the moon is high and the birds silent, it is said a warrior in gleaming armor visits the meadow. Some claim him a Nephilim, some swear he has the ears of a Seelie. Others say he moves with the speed of a vampire, there have been those who claim him to approach as a wolf before transforming. Yet others ascribe him the powers of a warlock. He has been labeled a demon, too. And once, a particularly romantic fella - or a drunk fool maybe - even declared him an angel, this mysterious warrior. What drives him there year after year, for centuries on end, differs from storyteller to storyteller. There have been those that say it's guilt, others swear by penance. And some think of a still binding oath. Most though claim he goes for love.

But why should it not be all of those, I ask?

Why should guilt and penance not drive him at the same time as love and an everlasting oath? Could he not have sworn eternal protection and everlasting love and failed to save her live, leading him to visit her for all eternity unable to find release?

Who is she though, this woman in the meadow? No one can say for sure. The runes on her skin declare her a shadowhunter, though the burial does not. Then again, what do we know about the shadowhunters of old? Can we say when we started to burn our dead? Maybe in that time of constant war so very long ago we honored them differently?

There is said to be a crest at the foot of her stony bed. A blazing flame, as the stories go. Should she truly be a shadowhunter, the flame marks her a Lightwood. Certainly a most noble family, whose members fought bravely in the Dark Wars against Lilith's Morning Star. A family of tragedies too. Could this woman in the meadow possibly be from that ancient time? A victim of the terrible war that destroyed so many lives and lead to two of the three known summoning of the Angel?

There is a story in the Lightwood family, passed on from generation to generation since those days of war. According to them, during that time a Lightwood woman fell in love with a Downworlder but for reasons lost to time they could not be together. Maybe it was her family's scorn - you must remember, in those days, the shadowhunters and Downworlders were very much divided by distrust, hate and a sordid past - that kept them apart. As the story goes, the woman was miserable, tumbling from one pitfall to the next, from a yin fen addiction to an ill-advised entanglement with a vampire to an ill-advised relationship with a mundane. It is said that, during the time of the Morning Star's famous abduction of the Flaming Huntress she was reunited with her beloved though the reunion was to be short-lived. The tale concludes with her disappearance during the Battle of Brooklyn - or tragic death in her lover's arms in that battle, according to one version of the story, felled by Asmodeus himself.

After the battle he lover is said to have taken her body away, prepared it for the funeral himself and then built her an eternal resting place with his one hands, as everlasting as his love for her. 

The tale bears striking resemblance to the woman in that ever-winter meadow and her always blooming roses,untouched by time for centuries. 

I for one believe wholeheartedly that the Lightwood woman from the tale and the mystery woman in the meadow are one and the same. 

Who then is the warrior that visits her? Surely he must be her Downworlder lover, but his identity is as lost to time as her name. He must be immortal though, to visit her still, centuries after the war's end. And while a vampire would only be able to come by night, it is doubtful that the one true love of a recovered yin fen addict should be a vampire, not to mention that no vampire has ever been described to be able to control nature in such a way as to build the monument or keep it covered in snow. Both a warlock and a Seelie would be able to create a monument like this and keep it frozen in time but neither species ever confirmed or denied involvement. The warlocks simply have no government central (and bothering) enough to keep track of all their people's lives and it is not in the nature of the Seelie to disclose anything to anyone really. 

When I mentioned the meadow to Magnus Bane over tea once, he grew still. As I proceeded to the connection I saw to that old Lightwood tale, his eyes darkened and he told me that sometimes it was best to leave things in the past. His mind seemed to be somewhere far away… or maybe long ago. He made a comment though that I found particularly intriguing. Absentmindedly, as if he had completely forgotten about my presence, he marveled at the devotion inherent to a Seelie's true love. That was the moment his husband returned and I thought it best to take my leave.

Apparently Magnus Bane - who allegedly fought alongside the shadowhunters of New York during the Dark Wars - knows the truth behind the meadow, or a version of it at least. But maybe it's for the best if no one ever knows. Maybe some stories really best remain untold. 

After all, who would want to incur a Seelie's wrath?

_Alexander Clarion Herondale, Alicante (Idris), March 3278 AD_

**Author's Note:**

> There is a companion piece to this one called "Bone (For Those Who Don't Grow Old)" it is No. 9 in this series

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Bone (For Those Who Don't Grow Old)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19472989) by [MedusaSterling](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MedusaSterling/pseuds/MedusaSterling)




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